Special dressing up days at school - number day nightmare

[Bluebells81]

Our primary school takes part in days where the children where special clothing - today being 'Number Day'.

These are always massively stressful for my DC (9). We make a plan led by them. Sometimes I relent and buy some rubbish off Amazon that will be exactly the same as half the rest of the kids (e.g for Egyptian Day, Victorian Day etc), but generally try to avoid this and make something from what we have at home.

As day nears DC gets increasingly stressed about their outfit - generally I think they'd just rather wear school uniform every day and not have the disruption to routine. Today, yet again, we had the mother of all tantrums about their outfit and were all late for school with everyone crying. How can I make this the fun educational experience that it is supposed to be!? Or is it a nightmare for other families too?

Not all kids love it though. Read the posts above yours. One of mine loved it, one hated it and one didnt care either way. Im not sure where the educational stuff is in it either. Like in victorian days they wanted the kids to dress up in ragged clothes etc. But not all victorians were like that. Plenty were pretty well dressed etc. So the dressing up kind of gave the idea everyone was poor and scruffy which was untrue

And i fully hear you on the lack of notice. The times theyve come home needing and outfit for 2 days time. And thqt was before amazon

One of my DC goes to a special class in a very deprived area and the school
is brilliant and only do dress up at Halloween which I think is plenty. My other DC goes to a school where they also do world book day dressing up and lots of other colour days for charity which always seem to involve lots of parents buying items of clothes that will never be worn again. I think it’s awful. The only time I thought dress up was a good thing to do was when a local school was 100 years old in 2015 so they all dressed in 1915 style clothing to celebrate . That actually had a proper purpose to it .

It's number day at our primary school today as well. My older DS hates any themed day, and the older kids were supposed to dress up like (times table) rock stars, from the school app, which he absolutely hated the idea and. He just wore normal clothes, he always does for any theme day and no one has ever said anything. I've never spent a penny on costumes, and I really don't think the school care.

@ Sowhat1976 -
“The problem with ours school is they don't give enough notice”

I’m so thankful my DC are grown up - but I’ll never forget the morning when DD said (on her way out of the door) “Oh by the way, I’m supposed to be going in as a Roman today.” One hastily improvised toga and laurel wreath later, and off she went. Now, even in Roman times, only the rich wore togas because you need someone else to drape it and put it on so I very much doubt DD’s ensemble made it past break. She came home in a filthy sheet….

I think these days are ridiculous and I don’t see the point. I feel sorry for families on low incomes.

Honestly I hate these things. More expenditure and pressure on parents, another thing to remember. Why can’t they do it as an activity in school to make a costume or item or something instead? Or just send him in as is if he’s happy to go, DD1 is never bothered about being the odd one out in that regard (which I actually think is a very good trait to have!)

I refuse to do them - I see no value in wearing odd socks for autism or green for world day or crazy hair/outfit day - usually also coincides with a request for a “donation” towards the school

I’m not wasting my time, energy or money

One of my kids refused to participate and always wore school uniform, they weren’t the only one.

My grandsons hated school.dressing up days. I ended up sending them in football kit with a book by Alex Ferguson or similar. One time one wore a terrible black wig styled as George Best and he won a prize lol.

It was so competitive. One mum was furious about her main competitor and had actually dyed her young son's hair purple. Just why.

Football kits weren't allowed in my DC school. Apparently they encouraged hooligan behaviour.

And for the "just go to Primark" etc. posters that's assuming parents have the time, there's a Primark/charity shop easy to get to, and they have the ££. And, to be perfectly honest, that people can be arsed spending what might be their only downtime schlepping round shops to "simply pick up a brown long sleeve knitted jumper for World Potato Day in June"

Our school allows school uniform if you don't want to dress up. I think it should always be an option, especially if someone has 2+ kids, the number of special outfits could be 4-5 per year.

Ours have always hated dressing up. Sometimes they go for it, others, like today...they're just in mufti.

Our school PTA sells donated costumes for £1 each before Book Day every year. We have some pupils who struggle with dressing up days so they wear their regular school uniform with a small homemade badge or sticker that fits the theme or just their uniform.

I am not crafty either. My kids always wanted to win the fecking thing, and apparently you can’t win with an Amazon effort, which was my default.

DD got good at making things herself in the end, but she still didn’t win with some excellent home made outfits (made by herself in yrs 5 and 6) because the kids whose parents were art teachers and made amazing creations won.

DS had a couple of DD made outfits (there’s a five year gap) but usually made do with bought outfits, or something very basic.

I agree they are probably a net negative experience rather than a positive.

Both of mine in secondary now thank goodness.

DD is now in the sixth form and making her school do world book day this year 😂 But she’s at least come up with suggestion low effort / cost outfits for the younger years.

It might be worth having a conversation with the school about the impact it has on your DC to see if they would approach it in a slightly different way. In recent years our school has made it clear in communications home and to the children themselves that participation is completely optional and they can either choose to dress up, just wear a token item of clothing/accessory on theme or to just wear their school uniform if they wish. My kids chose to not to dress up as they got older and they certainly weren’t the only ones.

I distrust and instructions that begin with “simply” or “just”.

Ds used to get himself so worked up he often vomited. The girls loved them

The school.never did plain own clothes, there always had to be a theme. Three in two weeks was the record.
Ds hardly made any.

I asked if the school could offer an alternative to dressing up like make a poster, and they said no. Which seemed rather short-sighted of them.

Why aren’t the children making their own outfits in school for these days? That would teach them some practical skills, historical accuracy, creative thinking etc. What is the educational value of buying some toot off Amazon over and over again?

And added to that was the times they made it a competition which was always student vote, so became popularity.
Not infrequently the head asked the winner what/who they were dressed as to be told I haven't dressed up. I just wanted to wear this". 🙄

We never followed the theme. Lots of parents/kids didnt. The school would try and insist they had to go in themed dress in newsletters and say if they didnt they had to wear uniform but what could they do about it? They wouldnt send a child home.

Obvs they were still ok about taking the bloody £1 "donation" to the PTA 😬

They don’t need a costume
write numbers on a jumper/ shirt , make a badge and pin it on
go with what your kid wants not what everyone else is doing

I hated these days with a passion and so did my kids, thank god primary years are done with and there's hardly any involvement needed from secondary! I remember
Word Book day
Victorian day
Roman day
WWII day
Japan day
Support for Ukraine day the kids had to wear a blue and yellow outfit
Christmas jumper day
Wear something red or some other colour to show support for something or other usually with a donation
Like another poster said Football shirts and Disney Princess dresses were not allowed
I don't miss it at all

Last term it seemed continuous, even DH cracked and snapped, can't they just go to school wearing the uniform we bloody paid for for once?! We've done number day today and next week it's something for valentine's. Mainly managed DIY over the years as they have a lot of dress up anyway, but did have to supplement dds outfit for today with an emergency Amazon purchase. At least it can be handed down to ds.

Our donations go directly to the charity and not the school.

Our school raises money in other equality, irritating ways, usually food related. This year, they've done doughnut and candy floss day £1.50 each. In the summer the regularly do ice pole after school £50p or a lemonade stall. My kids don't even eat those things buy they also want to have them because they don't want to be different. I'd personally prefer to make a termly voluntary donation and be done with it.

We used to make stuff for plays etc at school. The costumes and other accessories were woven into our classrs